


124 (The Watchman)

by krrs



Series: 124 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, Character Death, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Gen, M/M, Secret Identity, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, Violence, Witch Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 04:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17932922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krrs/pseuds/krrs
Summary: In the dying, frosted town of Hurstbane, the Watch serves as the front line of defense against wicked things in the forest. It's a dangerous job, but one that pays well. Steve is sick, they don't have food, the fireplace needs wood and rent always goes up, doesn't it? Bucky comes home one night and tells Steve that he has registered for the Watch.The smile’s slipping. Dripping down his cheeks like candle wax in a thin wooden house; this moment is so far from what Bucky imagined. Steve’s eyes are ice picks clawing up his ribcage, a metal tool crunching into smooth glacial cliffs and making hairline fractures. It’s cold enough outside, it doesn’t need to be cold in here, too."You’re going to die out there,” Steve promises.





	124 (The Watchman)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone. Just a heads up, this story contains some graphic violence/gore and emotional manipulation. If these things bother you, do yourself a favor and skip this fic! Also, this has been edited a bit and re-uploaded, so sorry if you're subscribed and it sends you a notification, lol. Nothing new, just revision and some added detail.
> 
> Please excuse the spelling/grammar mistakes and I hope you enjoy!

THE WATCHMAN

 

The smile’s slipping. Dripping down his cheeks like candle wax in a thin wooden house; this moment so far from what Bucky imagined. Steve’s eyes are ice picks clawing up his ribcage, a metal tool crunching into smooth glacial cliffs and making hairline fractures. It’s cold enough outside, it doesn’t need to be cold in here, too. 

“You’re going to die out there,” Steve promises. That’s all he says. The logs burn in the fireplace and the wind howls outside and Bucky’s chest rises and falls. They’ve had this conversation before, just not verbally. And then he’s standing from his little creaky chair and stomping on creaky floorboards over to where Steve sits in another creaky chair to twist a fist into the collar of Steve’s shirt and lifting until the worn toes of his friend’s boots scratch the floor.

“Oh, yeah?” Bucky breathes and Steve scrambles for footing. “We’re gonna die in here if I don’t find work! We’re gonna die in here if we can’t get food, if we can’t get water, if we can’t pay rent, if I can’t pay for your remedies, if I can’t pay the doctors or the priests to keep the paint off our door, if I can’t keep us safe. You understand?”

Bony knuckles hit Bucky in the nose and he stumbles back. There’s hidden potential in Steve’s tiny frame. 

“Oh, get off your fucking high horse!” Steve laughs once he’s out of Bucky’s grasp. “Is that what this is about? You having to pay for everything? Because if you have something to say, you better say it.” Then when Bucky doesn’t say anything, Steve straightens out his shirt and continues. “I don’t need you and you know it. I can make it just fine on my own. I can leave tonight if that’s what you want and you won’t have to worry a pretty hair on your head about me. That sound okay?”

Bucky wipes the bead of blood from his nostril and sniffs. The fire’s still crackling, the wind still howling. “I asked you a question, Bucky. Does that sound good?” A long gust of wind moans outside.

Bucky shakes his head. “No, idiot. I don’t want you to leave.” And he has to say it angry, he has to spit it out because if he doesn’t, it might sound too sentimental.

“Well, alright.” Steve says and picks up his chair as it had fallen over when Bucky got rough. And he sets it up right in front of the fire where a rusty cauldron hangs, exuding the smell of dinner. “Then stop making excuses and stop pretending to be happy about it. No one ever is happy about joining the Watch.”

Bucky repositions his own chair by the fire and sinks into it with a groan. “I am. In a way.”

“Well sure, in the same way a whore is happy to get a handful of gold once the cock is out of their mouth,” snorts Steve. But it’s not really very funny. Bucky’s going to die out there. 

“It’s work, Steve. It’s pay, _good_ pay.”

“There are other jobs that pay just as good. And what if your nightmares come back?”

Bucky huffs. “Then they come back! And yeah, there are other jobs but they’re all taken. That’s why you’re a gravedigger instead of a baker.” 

Steve crosses his arms before barking out a dry laugh “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m very sick.” He says. “And while the doctors and the priests have enough gold in their pockets to look the other way, everyone else in town is waiting until we can’t afford special treatment anymore and then I’ll be hauled away to quarantine to rot. To die.  
“I dig graves because no one will hire an immature corpse. You think they’ll let me handle food? Or work for the church, or do any sort of work that requires me to be around living people? Pay some fucking attention, I’m allowed to consort with the dead, Bucky. And that’s it.  
“But you, you can do any job. You went to school for a while, you can read and write real good, you’re strong. You’d have no problem finding work if you weren’t so damn picky about it. But registering for the Watch? Do you have an actual deathwish? Use your head, Bucky.”

“No, _listen_ to me.” Bucky leans on his knees to face Steve. Shining grey eyes begging for understanding. Steve’s still narrowing his gaze into Bucky and his lips are pressed in a thin line. “Do you know how much Watchmen get paid? Hmm? Do you?” More crackling of the fire as it does very little to keep them warm. “One hundred and twenty four pieces per week.” 

It’s punctuated by chattering teeth. By a particularly violent outburst of embers in the air. By a rattling of rusty door hinges as the wind rams it’s eternal body against flimsy wood with the rage of a beast that’s been denied entrance to a space that declared it unwelcome.

“Holy shit,” Steve breathes. Bucky laughs. “Holy _shit_ , that’s about more than we make in a month!” Now he’s laughing too, scooting closer to the fire. Shadows dance with his smile. “Aw, why’d you have to go and tell me that, I can’t argue with you now! One hundred and twenty fucking four gold pieces, we’d have enough to leave this shithole. Twice over. We could leave Hurstbane on a golden chariot pulled by goddamned regency stallions!”

The broth in the pot smells a lot more substantial now. Like there’s more than two ill shaped potatoes floating around in it, half gone bad. Like it could fill their bellies and sing them to sleep. Oh, what a fantasy it is.

“Watchmen don’t last very long in Hurstbane,” Steve says.

“I know.”

Steve scans his friend’s face and blinks. “You scared?”

There are a few seconds that go by before Bucky nods a very stunted nod and his eye’s don’t leave the snapping fire. “I’m really scared,” he whispers. “I gotta keep thinking about the money, though.”

When he looks back to Steve, his jaw is tight. He’s thinking, Bucky can tell.

“If you die on the job, do I get the gold for that week? Exactly how’s that work?” Bucky answers the question by pulling his friend into a headlock and laughing all hollow. 

 

⇞

 

Dusty brown boots crunch their way out of the house, down the street, around the corner. It’s a path Bucky knows well; he walks it every week. The coins jangle around in his pocket and he sticks a hand inside to clasp them, to quiet them in unadverstisment. Thieves like loitering in this part of town. 

He approaches a squat dwelling. Something like a house and something like a business. Bucky gives two knocks. “Dr. Foster?”

The lock switches and clicks. Bucky is ushered inside quickly and quietly, a practiced movement. “James, good morning. I was wondering when you’d be by.” Dr. Foster says, placing her glasses on a desk. The interior of Foster’s office is strikingly similar to the outside; something like a house and something like a business.

“I know I’m a day late, I’m between jobs, you see.” He fishes the gold out of his pocket and counts it in his palm. “Seventeen shillings, that’s all of it.”

Dr. Foster takes the coins with lips pressed thin, the very beginnings of frown lines looking more prominent than they did just a week ago. “James,” she starts. He hates that. “As of next week, it’ll be eighteen.” She won’t look at him and he scoffs.

“But you just moved it to seventeen a couple months ago.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Dr. Foster, I don’t make very much,” Bucky stammers.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

He waits until he’s outside again and that the door to Dr. Foster’s office is closed and locked before kicking the side of the building in anger. He shrugs his coat back up onto his shoulder and sniffs. Composes himself. He fixes dark hair, smoothes the curls down and then Bucky turns eastward and marches on to pay off the priest with aching toes.

 

⇞

 

Steve isn’t left completely alone with only the dead for company during his shifts. There are crows and worms and beetles and hares. There church bells tolling in the distance and choir boys harmonizing westward and the echoes of horses clip-clopping on the edge of town. Sometimes, if he’s lucky, Sam’s there too. Another plagued young man doing honest work for shit pay. They grumble together.

“Man, what I wouldn’t give for a loaf of cinnamon bread ‘bout this time of year,” Sam says, throwing a shovel full of dirt over his shoulder.

“From the place on the corner of Toledge and Toppingrath,” Steve adds.

“Mmm, you said it.”

“I haven’t been there in ages.” Steve heaves a shovelful off to the side.

Sam shakes his head, ratty coat flapping in the breeze. “Shit, me either. Don’t even know if that place is still open. It seems like everyone’s closing down.”

“First the carpenter on Elm, then the apothecary on Birdle, the baker may as well be next.” Dig. Heave. Dirt’s added to the pile.

“Speaking of apothecaries, I had to go to the top of the hill just for dahlia extract. The little shops don’t sell it anymore,” Sam shares. 

“No, they don’t.” Dig. Heave. “They don’t sell bluebell stems or pinetap anymore, either. No more homemade remedies for us poor folk.”

Sam rolls his eyes. Dig. Heave. “Like we’d be using homebrewed shit if we had a choice,” he mumbles.

Steve sticks his shovel in the dirt to button his coat. “Give it a few weeks. One they realize that the only business they get is from people like us buying out ingredients, the shelves’ll be stocked to the brim.”

Dig. Heave. “I hope you’re right, Steve.”

The two of them dig four graves that day. It’s tiring work when the almost-winter ground is half frozen and their lungs don’t work quite right. They pass back and forth a cold meat pie that Sam had brought, wrapped up in a stained handkerchief while sitting by a metal brazier. Fingerless are rendered nearly irrelevant in the cold but still they hold palms up to the fire.

“Bucky signed up for the Watch,” Steve says. Sam’s chewing slows and he looks at Steve. He doesn’t say anything. “That’s my housemate, you know, my friend. You’ve met him once.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Shit, Steve.” Sam swallows. “That’s uh, the pay is good. That’s what I hear anyway.” Steve understands why Sam feels the need to justify Bucky’s joining. Desperation is the only reason anyone joins the Watch in Hurstbane.

“Yeah,” mutters Steve. And he doesn’t know why he told Sam. Maybe so that when the day comes to dig Bucky’s grave, Sam won’t ask any questions and it’ll be easier that way. 

Steve walks home, holding his thin coat close to his body. The gravel crunches underfoot with each step and the crows escort him all the way.

 

⇞

 

“Pretty sure it’s against the rules to fall in love with your commanding officer, Buck.” Steve smirks, lighting a candle. 

Bucky laughs. “I’m not in love with Admiral Carter. She’s just very respectable, is all. You’d like her.” He joins Steve in lighting the candelabras around the single room house.

“You think I’d blush like you do when I talk about her, too?” says Steve and Bucky colors further, a dark pink in the shadows.

“Sometimes I wish that I was paired with another little boy in the orphanage instead of you, Steve Rogers.” The food is stirred with amusement. 

Steve waits until they’re seated at the tiny table with bowls of porridge to ask real questions. Bucky’s nose is bruised from the barely-fray from yesterday, but his lip is also split. He sits on the chair low and heavy like he’s hardly staying awake.

“How was training?” asks Steve once he’s cleared his throat.

Bucky snaps to attention, jaw chewing faster in excitement to answer. “Really good,” he says, bursting into smile. Steve points to his busted lip and Bucky nods. “I got hit with a gun. The butt, I mean.” He makes the motion of a gun whacking his face with a soft sound effect.

“Why do you sound so happy about it?”

“‘Cause it was incredible. I’ve never seen a gun before. They’re imported from the capital, real big and real heavy. Rifles. That’s the kind the Watch uses.”

Steve nods slowly, chewing. “Why’d you get hit with one?” Bucky shrugs.

“Mouthed off.”

“And did you go over what your responsibilities will be?” Once Steve asks this, Bucky’s face falls. Much like it did the night before after Steve first voiced his disapproval of the whole idea.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Shoot anything that comes out of the forest.” Bucky’s voice falters. “Never leave your post. Keep your gun loaded. Light the center torch if you shoot something. Ring the bell if you shoot more than three things. Barricade your tower after you ring the bell. Shoot yourself if they get through the barricade. Because, according to Carter, you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t.”

Bucky doesn’t eat any more of his dinner. He just scoots the bowl forward a few inches and stares. Steve lets him, he’s not about to give him a hard time. Hard times will come, sure as the snow. But Steve eats his own porridge and allows himself to feel microscopically smug. He gets up to load another log onto the fire and sits back down to flick a finger against Bucky’s food bowl. He should eat.

“I think they say all those things ‘cause they want to scare off people,” Bucky says, still a little shaky. “Weed out the scaredy cats in the start, you know. So they don’t get wimps up in the towers.”

Steve just nods because he’s afraid he’ll say something to scare Bucky further if he opens his mouth. Instead, he points at the porridge in encouragement.

“It can’t be as bad as they make it sound,” Bucky whispers, eyes unblinking and hazy. Something in Steve’s chest ruptures at Bucky’s expression and the pain is sharp. Flooding his chest cavity with edges. 

“I’m sure it’s not,” Steve lies. “Eat up.”

 

⇞

 

Within three weeks, Bucky is promoted from trainee to recruit. The pay as recruit is better, but it’s still not one hundred and twenty four gold pieces a week. Bucky marches stiffly in his brand new uniform along the brick corridor of the barracks until he reaches a darkwood door and knocks. The voice inside is muffled through the mahogany but the words sound enough like ‘come in’ that Bucky does just that.

“Hello, Mr. Stark?”

The man behind the desk looks up. His hair is a mess, his glasses crooked and his tie so loose that the knot almost reaches his navel. “Yeah, hi?”

“Admiral Carter sent me, I’m James Barnes,” he says, stepping forward and extending a hand. Mr. Stark makes no move to stand, he just pushes Bucky’s hand away with the tip of a fountain pen gripped in between his thumb and pointer finger.

“Oh. Oh!” Now Stark stands and places his glasses on the paper covered desk. “Yes, I have your rifle.” 

Mr. Stark turns on his heel and retreats to the far corner of the office and Bucky waits until his back is turned to gawp at the room. This is quite an office. It’s a laboratory. There are sketches plastered to the walls, stuck to every surface of the mahogany furniture and half drunk bottles of whiskey instead of paperweights. Heavy velvet curtains block out all sunlight and oil lamps burn dangerously close to parchment. Hues of brown and burgundy so vibrant in their showmanship.

Along the back wall of the spacious room, rows and rows of rifles are lined up like matches in a box. All different models and colors, lengths and barrel sizes. Gold, silver and copper engravings gleam in the dusty glow. Bucky’s eyes widen. Scents of alcohol, ink and metal mingle together to create a fine wine; the room is the very taste of novelty straight from the capital.

Mr. Stark turns over a carob gun in hand before trudging between piles of books on the floor back to Bucky.

“Here she is. Factory made, but I plated the name tag myself. It’s a long range Snowsong model, one of my newer ones, and takes .308 calibres. Potts ammunition, only compatible with Potts ammunition, you put any other kind of bullet in here it’ll just click at you.” Stark demonstrates by pulling the trigger and the machine sticks and clicks. Bucky nods after flinching. “You can use Breaker solvent to clean her and please, try not to die soon. You’re the third owner of this gun within half a year, I don’t want to change the nameplate again, okay?”

Bucky gulps. “Uh, yes. Sir.” The rifle is heavy in his cracking hands. Smooth wood and pretty metal shining, it feels entirely out of place in a small village like Hurstbane but here in the lavish painting that is Mr. Stark’s office, it seems home. 

Even when encased in a leather covering and strapped to his back, carrying it out of the barracks and through the streets makes Bucky self-conscious. Is everyone staring at him? The uniform and firearm make him an easy target for thieves. If they were to get their hands on the firm wool of his black jacket or the capital imported gun, they would certainly have no problem selling the second hand goods. But who is dumb enough to mug a man with a gun?

Bucky thinks about how quickly he could draw the rifle. How fast he could point and pull the trigger and splatter hot brains on cold gravel. He thinks about how a mere month ago he couldn’t do those things. And he walks two miles home feeling every bit the Watchman he will become.

When he reaches the front door of the worn down shack of a house, he pauses. Steve’s humming inside. Bucky pulls his jacket smooth and combs fingers through his hair. He’s not sure why there’s this need to look capable, there just is. Steve doesn’t even look up when he opens the door, his new Watchmen boots clicking heavy on the floorboards a lot louder than his old shoes ever could. Steve’s just laying on his mattress, candle held in one hand and book in the other. Humming.

Bucky clears his throat. 

Steve’s eyes go wide as he takes in Bucky’s uniform. Fear settling on top of the blue. His chapped lips part in a silent intake of breath and he’s leaning off the bed, book forgotten and candle abandoned on the floor. Bucky steps slowly towards the middle of the room and Steve meets him halfway. Steve’s hands look empty, like he should be holding something, touching something, _hitting_ something but aren’t. They hang awkwardly at his sides while his eyes rake Bucky up and down.

“You’re really going out there, huh?” Steve sighs. It’s a sad sigh, there’s no room for anger. Just fear and sadness. Bucky holds his arms out, showing off the embroidery on his jacket, he clicks his boots against the floor and tips his head in false confidence.

“Nothing’s gonna happen to me.” It’s dark in the house tonight. Steve must have been too caught up in his book to light more candles. The fireplace flickers bright and raging, lining Steve’s sharp features and making him look like a stern grown up and not a nineteen year old gravedigger. “I start in the tower tomorrow. The one south of town by the fence.”

Steve nods. Bucky points to the pin on his lapel. It’s proof he’s qualified, proof that he knows how to shoot a gun, proof that he knows how to protect himself and the citizens of Hurstbane. 

“The southern tower is the safest,” Bucky says softly, trying to ease both their minds. He slides the rifle off his shoulder and out of the case. “I’ll be okay, Steve.” Bucky utilizes the gap in conversation to remove its case and hold out the rifle for his friend to see. “I met Tony Stark today, the gunsmith from the capital? Says this is the best gun there is,” Bucky lies, and it’s a weak lie with no real meaning. 

Gripping the mid section of the rifle, Bucky holds the gun steady before offering it to Steve who slowly reaches out and wraps his fingers around the underbelly. “You ever see a gun before?” Bucky asks.

“No,” Steve mumbles, taking the gun fully from Bucky and inspecting it. He turns it over, fingertips hardly grazing the wood like he’s afraid it might go off.

“Isn’t it neat?”

Steve’s lips thin and he nods. Sighs. He appreciates Bucky trying to ease his worries, but this is making everything worse. His spidery fingers run along the gun, down to the tip and up the other side, rimming along the metal parts slower than the wood. It is neat, he’ll admit. Very neat. Very mechanical.

But this thing in front of them. Is all that will separate Bucky from the things in the forest. This factory made _instrument_ , a toy for men. Is all that will keep Bucky’s heart pumping. Steve looks at Bucky, hand tracing delicate shapes on the rifle in a supposed distraction. He wants to tell Bucky that he’s terrified for him, that he’s so angry with him for willingly signing up for this. Steve wants to tell Bucky to be so, so careful out there. Remind him of the friends and family they’ve lost to forest dread. Remind him not to be the hero he thinks he is. To please, just come home safely and with pay. But he can’t say those things.

So, Steve scowls instead and dumps the rifle back into Bucky’s hands. “Yeah, it is.” And then he turns away to return to his bed, his candle, his book and doesn’t look at Bucky the rest of the night.

 

⇞

There’s a man in the graveyard, several rows over who won’t leave. Sam first notices him and raises a quizzical eyebrow at Steve. Steve looks over his shoulder at the figure cloaked in a dark coat crouching by a grave, and shrugs. A mourner. They’re not uncommon in a town filled with death.

But the man doesn’t move. He stays crouched on one knee all morning until both gravediggers sit by the brazier for lunch. They watch him, growing more uncomfortable with each minute that passes. His head is bent, coat long and pristine black, white gloves folded on top of his right knee. Steve shakes his head.

“I’m gonna go see if everything’s alright,” he tells Sam. Sam grabs his arm as he stands and hauls him back down to the ground.

“Are you insane?” it steams out like a hiss.

“What?”

“Something’s not right with him, Rogers. Don’t go near him.” Sam warns. Steve’s head snaps back up to the figure. Unmoving. Steve’s legs fold back underneath him. “It’s _unnatural_ , Steve.”

Sam’s right. It is unnatural. Incredibly unnerving. If he didn’t need the pay, he’d be on his way home by now and reporting the man to the nearest church. A heretic probably. Some decrepit old beggar who practices black magic by night and dwells in desolate graveyards by day, waiting for his next victim to isolate themself. 

He and Sam dig the rest of the plots for the day and their necks hurt more than usual from casting furtive glances at the _unnatural_ man in between each heave of the shovels. Dig. Heave. He’s so preoccupied with the stranger that Steve almost forgets that it’s Bucky’s first day in the tower. His chest tightens whenever the thought creeps it’s way back into his head. His shovel comes down with more force, he tosses the dirt with newfound strength and grunts as he picks up the pace. If Sam notices anything, he doesn’t say. 

It’s entirely unfair, Steve thinks.

When the sun begins to leave them, Sam leans his shovel against the mausoleum and says goodbye. He gives another look to the statuesque stranger and another pointed one at Steve. Steve knows what it means, ‘leave soon. Don’t dally.’ 

And then Sam is walking off towards his home, against the biting wind. Steve goes to put his own shovel next to Sam’s against the mausoleum and turns as quickly as he can to begin his walk home. But he hears something that paralyzes every bone in his body. It grabs his fingers and feet and holds them down, making his heart sink into the dirt. 

The stranger is crying. Soft sniffles and quiet sobs floating in between headstones.

Steve idles, licking his lips. It’s none of his business, he should go home. But the stranger has been there all day and hasn’t moved. Not even for a piss. Steve feels for the small hunk of bread in his pocket and sighs. 

He approaches the man with steps as loud as he can make them, but the stranger doesn’t look up, doesn’t move, doesn’t stop crying. Doesn’t notice Steve. He keeps walking, bread in hand.

“Excuse me,” Steve says. “I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been here for quite a while without anything to eat.”

Now that Steve is close enough, the stranger looks up. He’s an average man. With two eyes, a nose and a mouth. Nothing remarkable. He wears a priest’s attire and his eyes are ringed with red. He says nothing to Steve.

“I’m sorry for interrupting, but would you like some bread? I have extra.” He holds it out. The stranger is still kneeling but he shifts so that he can face Steve. The plain of his face twists in confusion as he takes in the situation.

“Oh, sweet thing. Thank you very much.” He reaches towards Steve’s outstretched hand and closes it back up, Steve’s long fingers guided so they wrap back up around the bread. “But I have no need.” The stranger smiles sadly.

Steve tilts his head. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Steve nods and waits a few seconds as the wind pushes at them both. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says, motioning to the gravestone, mostly because it’s just to quiet and heavy out here. “Have a good night, Sir.” 

The priest bows his head with the same sad smile still in place and Steve begins walking away. Crows caw from their perches, the deep bell rings from the city center, and light fades slowly, slowly. 

 

⇞

 

Steve knows what’s about to happen before he even sees them. His lip trembles in anger when they surround him. He knows that shouting ‘help! Please, somebody!’ is futile but he does anyway as he is dragged into an alleyway and beaten. They stomp on his kneecaps and it rips a guttural scream from his fragile lungs. Then they kick his ribs and the crack is almost as loud as the scream. He wheezes violently, vision going white and he tells himself to breath. Breathe.

His gold is taken first. It’s not a lot. Twenty one shillings. Then his coat is ripped off his body, his barely working pocket watch yanked from his pants pocket. Lastly, his shoes are plucked off one by one. Steve’s hair is grabbed, tugged and there are knuckles cracking down on his face. Crack! Crack! _Crack!_

His elbow is twisted and Steve knows it’s broken just by the sound he makes. Why are they still hurting him? They’ve gotten what they need.

“You sick fucking prick!” One yells, spitting on him. “Gonna infect us all, you bribing mother fucker!”

Slam!

His head bashes against the brick of the alley. Steve’s vision blacks completely and he folds into a pile of bones and blood and flesh on the ground. More kicks are delivered but he can’t feel anything anymore. He feels the warmth of his own blood pool around him and then the delinquents are running, sprinting away from him with stolen belongings slung over their shoulders. 

He’s making this terrible wheezing noise with each half breath he takes. The pain hardly registers. He’s dying. 

Entirely unfair. Fucking unfair. Fucking unfair. Digging graves and battling fevers is all his life is and was and never will be anymore. He’ll never see Bucky again, Sam again, a sob rips from him and sets his ribs on fire. He wishes he said the word ‘goodbye’ to Sam instead of just nodding at him. He wishes he said the same to Bucky this morning instead of pretending he was still asleep.

He says it now, in his head. While everything is black and dark and cold and _hurting_. Steve wheezes. Everything’s pulsing and throbbing and blood leaking from him at every joint. He’s grateful that in these last moments he can at least bathe in this little bit of warmth, he doesn’t care if it’s his own blood. He can’t afford to care. He’s going to find what joy he can. 

Steve hopes that Death will be satisfied in taking him instead of his friend out in that horrid tower and he dies picturing Bucky smiling proud in his uniform.

 

⇞

 

Bucky stands, shoulders squared and spine stiff in the southernmost watchtower of Hurstbane. The metal structure black against silver skies. And he watches the forest edge with vigilance. 

“Barnes,” his towermate reads off his embroidered name tag. “Where you from, Barnes?”

Bucky’s eyes don’t leave the forest. The whole thing sways in unison as the wind howls. “Here,” he states.

“I’m from Scalde, Fallshire area. Moved here three years ago, but I’ve been in the Watch for ten. Name’s Barton, it’s good to meet you Barnes.” Bucky hums in reply. “How old are you? You look awful young.” Bucky stifles a sigh and keeps watch. Bartons been restless all morning. He moves around, he whistles, he lays his gun down to take a piss off the edge of the tower, he warms his hands by the lanterns, he does everything but keep watch. “You’re a real conversationalist, you know that?” But most of all, Barton talks.

Keeping the silence, Bucky remains south facing and ridgid. The weight of his towermate’s gaze isn’t heavy or piercing or severe in any meaning of the word but it’s there. An added pressure.

“Eh, you’ll loosen up, rookie,” Barton says after a minute and playfully knocks his shoulder. Bucky’s like a rock up there in the tower, if the wind can’t move him, Barton can’t either.

“I’ll do my job, is what I’ll do,” he reprimands. Barton’s unfazed.

“This your first post?”

“Yes,” Bucky grits.

“Shows.”

And then Barton too turns to the forest before them. A horde of mutilated branches and bark all stitched together and undulating. Browns and greens dull in their distance and singing with scittering scratches. 

He grips his gun tighter, hands shaking only slightly. 

 

⇞

 

Burnt hair. Wet animal and mud. Blood. It smells like a dirt caked on a church bell, or maybe an overturned rowboat. Salt and iron and rotting fish. Steve’s eyes open slowly and with great effort; he finds himself laying on his back looking up at the stars. Surely, he is dead and this is the cosmic afterlife welcoming him with visceral scents and an astronomical sight to behold. 

It is not.

The brick tunnels upward in a horrifyingly familiar way and Steve wants to cry. This alley, this same alley where death found him still haunts. But a figure is in motion somewhere above him, just out of view. It’s walking to and fro, picking things up, putting them down. Opening books and tearing out pages. Scribbling scittering scratches. Steve pulls at his limbs, at his core and tries to sit up. Nothing. He can’t feel his limbs, but the bones shift just so and he groans in frustration. Steve tries again, teeth gritting as he wills a leg to bend, please, where is my body? 

“Don’t move,” says the figure just out of view. It’s gentle. “Just stay put a moment.”

Steve’s lip trembles but he will not cry. He’s always knows the world to be cruel, but why isn’t he allowed the basic mercy of dying? Why is he being denied this right? 

All around there is pink, red light. The color of roses in those stained glass murals that decorate churches. Candles that shine ruby instead of fire. _Unnatural_ shadows climb up dusty red brick.

Steve looks at the stars above. He connects constellations in a miserable haze, begging for death. Steve knows that people can be brought back. Through terrible, unforgivable deeds, people have been brought back. 

“I know, sweet thing,” honey-whispers the figure who tears out another page. “Just keep looking at the stars and this will be over shortly. I promise you.”

The smell of burning hair grows stronger and smoke swirls in his lungs. He doesn’t cough. He can’t cough. Steve pushes his eyes down as far as they can go, straining against muscles and watches his own chest. His shirt has been carefully unbuttoned to reveal a mess of blood across his torso. He can’t tell if all the red is from the injuries or if the symbols scrawled there in fingertip size font are new. Was the giant gash slitting down from throat to navel always there? His brain plummets. The symbols are new. The slice is new. There’s writing in blood across his chest. And it’s new.

His unmoving chest. Steve isn’t breathing. If he could cry, if he could scream, he would. He doesn’t want things to be this way, this horribly unnatural way. 

The figure looms above him now in a shroud of velvet black and holds something in each hand. Crimson glow highlights an unremarkable face, and Steve remembers the priest from the graveyard. He smiles the same sad smile at Steve. “I’m sorry things must be this way, but all will be righted soon enough.”

Steve chokes on his syllables as he tries to speak. His tongue a rolling mass inside his mouth, folding against teeth and lolling down his throat. He can make noises but no words and he hates the way they hobble around one legged in desperation.

“Just watch the stars, sweet thing. Think of your Bucky. Think of your factory job and your southbound ship.” 

Steve doesn’t have energy or time to try to figure out how the priest can say something like that. He takes the advice as the priest bends down, string and needle in hand and sews Steve up. Though there is no pain, the pulling moves him. His flesh and bones all stirring as the pop of the needle fits through skin and pulls tighter, tighter, tighter. All over his chest, stomach, arms, just a small one on the leg.

With every stitch, he counts a star. Eyes jumping back to ones he’s already tallied because the night sky doesn’t hold enough for all the tugs of the thread.

Steve concocts a fantasy of sorts. One where he doesn’t die tonight and isn’t being mutilated. One where he walks home to a shitty house and a shitty meal and a shitty bed and stunted conversation with Bucky. In his mind, the cold of the wind howling outside their windows is warmer than fire and he longs for shared hope of traveling down south to where the factories roar. Steve wants to pretend that he can still do that.

But then comes the pain. Steve is galvanized from the inside out, pumping organs jolting and straining against the cage of his flesh, buzzing like flies inside his body. And he screams. There’s a hand in his hair, gentle fingers caressing while the priest chants in some long dead language. Each word out of his mouth a bottled lightning bolt lobbed and shattered on this reanimated body. Glass shards melting into bone and boiling.

Steve cries now, loud heaving sobs. The pain is too great to move and he lays on bloodstained gravel looking at the stars and blubbers. He keeps on thinking of that future he promised himself, the same one Bucky promised. Of _leaving_. If he stops thinking about this, he’ll lose his mind, and it’s a truth he’s certain of for no reason. 

Long seconds pass into minutes, maybe hours. Pain becoming all Steve knows. Red and pink and hues of cherries, wines, and roses seering permanence behind his eyelids. Steve tastes hot blood as he bites his cheek to stop screaming, his throat a rendered raw. And slowly, the agony recedes. Dripping out from his center to limbs, to fingertips and toes, temples and nails throbbing like they might pop off until it’s gone completely. He’s still crying softly as the priest steps away. 

“Try to sit,” says the priest. Steve doesn’t. He’s stubborn and the priest doesn’t move. “Go on.” 

Steve stays where he is, limbs splayed out and woven back together. Senses are returning to him. He can see clearer, the crisp edges of uneven bricks. His limbs are heavy and aching, stinging where the needle bound him. The horrid stenches of the alleyway turn his stomach and he’s sitting quickly, head bent between knobby knees and heaving.

The things that come out of his mouth are moving. 

Bird fetuses all pink and squirming tumble from his lips, from his gut and throat onto the ground where they splat with a thick noise. Steve throws up again. Something unrecognizable spills out tasting like salt and smoke, thick and chewy. Dear god, please. Then the bile comes. Again and again, adding to the pile of retch and getting on his pants. 

When the last of everything comes up, Steve scrambles away until he’s backed against brick facing the priest. All over the floor of the alley resides strange objects. Books of ornamental sorts lay open and torn, burnt and smoking. Dead crows piled in the corner. Glass bottles and jars, medical instruments, small felt pouches lined up next to where Steve’s body had lay. 

“What did you do to me?” Steve asks. The priest sits.

“I’ve returned you from the afterlife.”

“Why?”

“You were undeserving of such a death,” states the priest with the conviction of a man who is used to preaching.

Steve’s lip quivers. “I wish you had let me die here,” he clumbers, pointing at the ground. Then he looks to the entrance of the alleyway, suddenly and angrily curious as to why not a soul came to his rescue. 

But where the alleyway should open up into street, there is only more brick enclosing the space. Steve looks to the opposite end to find another brick wall. He stumbles over to where the opening belongs, to the space where he entered this dreadful alley and approaches the wall with an outstretched, bleeding and swollen stitched up hand.

He touches it experimentally. It’s a solid, cold brick wall.

“You heretic! You witch!” Steve yells, turning on the priest. He doesn’t quite approach him, he just takes a few shaky steps in his direction. “Undo it!” he commands.

“I won’t.”

“Please!” begs Steve. 

“Return to your Bucky. Speak naught of his. Go home now,” the priest says and Steve blinks at him, throat closing. The priest speaks so lightly. “Go on, sweet thing. Hurry before you freeze.” 

And then that fourth brick wall is gone and the cold wind from the street hits his back. Steve watches the haggard witch-priest with sad eyes and the witch-priest looks back. Can it be a dream? Can it be?

Steve aches in a way he’s never known. It’s deeper than bone and hand dug graves. He’s returned from death and he’s brought something with him. It lives inside him now and he’ll carry the weight around like rusting chains. 

 

⇞

 

The window frame is not illuminated with the usual yellow glow and the door is locked. Bucky digs the key from his pocket and unlocks the front door with a click. Their house is commonly both cold and dark but not usually unoccupied. Bucky’s eyebrows gather in concern and slight annoyance.

Right away, he lights a candle. Then another and another before moving to start the fire. Steve is being immature. Bucky thought they were past it. The Watch and the putting himself in danger. Safety is a luxury they cannot afford.

He cooks rice for dinner and he makes enough for two. And he watches the door. Maybe he should go down to the tavern; Steve likes to pick fights when he’s angry, a small part of Bucky hopes that Steve is getting the shit kicked out of him for being such an ass. But if he gets too hurt, he’ll miss work and they’ll miss rent. He hopes now that Steve just comes home soon.

Nine o’clock hits. Then ten. Bucky paces and keeps the fire stoked. He’s no longer angry, he’s just worried. He wishes Steve came home a normal time so that he could have told him about his first day as a Watchman recruit. How nothing happened and how there’s nothing to worry about. How he’ll do his job so good that he’ll be promoted all the way up to first officer in no time and get paid those one hundred and twenty four shillings each and every week.

Eleven o’clock. Twelve. Bucky eyes his jacket and debates going to look down at the Bell Toll Tavern. His knee is bouncing and he twitches in his creaky chair. If Steve isn’t dead, he’s going to kill him when he gets home.

As hard as he fights it, Bucky’s eyelids begin to fall. They droop and his body gives in, too. Standing all day will make you tired all over. In Bucky’s slumber, he dreams of horrible things in the forest. Terrible, wicked things that snarl and howl and bite and scream. In this nightmare, they kill Steve easily with a snap of his neck and leave Bucky alive to mourn.

Then sometime in the dark morning hours, the door creaks open. Bucky jerks awake and blinks the sleep from his eyes, heart pounding and he’s already rising from the chair. Steve slides through the entryway and Bucky feels his knees shake. Muscles ripple under his weight.

“Steve,” he mumbles. “Holy shit, Steve. What happened to you?” He’s got an arm around his friend’s skinny shoulders and he’s taking Steve’s weight. Bucky’s knees really might give out. Steve smells like blood and bile and something _unnatural_. “Steve! What happened?” Bucky yells. He can feel the roots of panic setting in.

“I just got in a fight, Bucky.”

“You’re covered in stitches?” It comes out like a question and Bucky drops Steve in a chair by the fire. “Where have you been?” He collects a grimy mug full of water from the barrel for his friend. And though Steve’s feet carried him from the alleyway to his home, he still feels trapped there in that claustrophobic bricked shape where pink light revived him. When will this be home again?

“I went drinking. Got in a fight. Foster patched me up, she was there.” Steve downs the water in thundering gulps.

“Dr. Foster doesn’t drink,” Bucky stutters.

“She was there. She took me up above the tavern, stitched me up.”

“No, she wasn’t! She doesn’t drink, you’re lying!” Bucky’s voice rises and his hands are shaking as takes the water from Steve to refill it.

“Please, stop it, Buck. I’m fine.”

“Where are your clothes? Your shoes? Can you just talk to me, Steve?” Bucky pleads, squatting in between the fireplace and Steve so that Steve has to look at him. Their eyes meet for a blindingly hot second and then Steve looks away. “Talk to me,” Bucky begs.

“I said leave it.” 

“Where are your shoes?” Bucky whispers. “Your coat?” 

Steve’s eyes burn as he forces himself to stare into the fire. Bucky’s eyes burn, too, from the stinging wind that dried them out all day. 

“You don’t even smell like alcohol,” Bucky says and his voice cracks. It sounds like he swallowed glass and Steve is hit with a pang of guilt. “What did you pay Foster with? Hmm?”

“Bucky,” he says. Steve means to say it firmly but with care. He means to say it in way that brings comfort to his friend and lets him know that it’s alright. In a way that friends might talk to one another. It doesn’t come out that way, though, instead it comes out icy and deep. Authoritative. Like they aren’t friends, like they don’t even know each other. Or worse, like they don’t care about each other. “Leave it.”

Bucky chews his lips, eyes so lost, so wide and frightened. “Okay,” he mouths. He gets up from his kneeled position and walks somewhere behind Steve, Watchman boots clunking loud and uneven. 

Steve scoots closer to the fire out of habit and moves to extend his arms, reaching for familiar warmth. The heat is hard to feel. Then Bucky circles back around and dumps a wet rag in his lap. It lands with the same splat the wriggling bird fetuses did and Steve wretches, hand coming to cover his mouth. 

Bucky steps back.

After a couple deep breaths, Steve picks up the rag. He starts on his arms, wiping away dried beads of blood and dirt. It stings. Bucky watches him. Steve cleans his other arm when he’s done and moves to his chest. When the cloth snags on one of the stitches, Steve winces and halts the movement. He places the rag back in his lap carefully and works to slide the unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders. Bucky watches him.

Bucky watches with skittish concern, like a dog waiting for a kick or a pet and he’s unsure which one he’ll get. When Steve’s shirt bloodsoaked comes off, Bucky gasps and his lips part, hand coming up and out maybe to touch, just to make sure that all of this is real. But he doesn’t. Steve’s glare stops him.

Thick black stitches line his entire torso in a crooked parade. 

“Stand up, Steve.” Bucky says it weakly and he does. Bucky comes closer, eyes bulging as he takes in Steve’s mangled form. Steve only becomes aware of the throbbing in his head when Bucky’s calloused fingers gingerly touch the side of his bloodied head. When they make contact, it feels as if he’s slammed into brick all over again and he winces smally. It doesn’t show.

Bucky runs his hand gingerly over blood caked hair, overtop where a fractured skull surely sat hours ago and whimpers. Red tipped fingers are brought up to Bucky’s face and he examines with wide eyes. He steps away from Steve, bloody hand over his mouth and he shakes his head side to side, a quick and deep fear looking right in place as Bucky trembles in his Watchman uniform.

“You look dead, Stevie,” Bucky moans. Steve hasn’t heard the nickname in years. Bucky hiccups, choking on a small cry. “Oh my god, Steve, what happened! You look dead! You look fucking dead!” 

He backs against the wall next to the fireplace, leaning crooked as he stares at Steve. Bucky’s on the verge of crying. Steve knows he looks dead. He looks like the crude illustrations from books hidden in the church that depict witch’s deeds. He looks like what the church warns them about, about the dangers of heresy, the dangers of unholy rituals and reality altering symbols in blood, rotting meat and burning hair.

Steve looks dead. Steve was dead. And he thinks Bucky knows.

“I’m okay,” Steve says, still just as icy. But he holds Bucky’s gaze and thinks about how he longed for this homely familiarity and the hope of a factory life as he lie in a state of reanimation. How when in agony, the thoughts of Bucky and a common future far away from here kept him sane.

And this is how he treats him. Pushing his natural questions and glaring. Steve softens. “It was just a fight. I’m really okay.” And he does his best to crawl into bed without limping or wincing or groaning while Bucky watches from against the wall. “Go to sleep, idiot,” Steve says fondly.

It takes Bucky a minute to collect himself. Slowly the candles are blown out in hushed puffs of air and the logs in the fire turned over until they sizzle black.

 

⇞

 

The next day, Steve doesn’t say goodbye to Bucky in the morning despite everything that happened. He thinks hard about it. The words are on his lips, today could be his last again, today could be Bucky’s last. Bucky pulls his pants on and looks around the one room house for his sweaty undershirt that he threw down in anger last night, and his eyes meet Steve’s. 

Steve’s throat wobbles with the words but his lips are still. Bucky’s nostrils flare a fraction and then he turns, picking up his shirt from the table and angrily yanking over his head. He finishes dressing as Steve looks at the floor. He can hear the rifle being slotted over Bucky’s shoulder and then, coldly,

“See you.”

The door slams.

 

⇞

 

Steve spends the day in bed, only getting up for water and to urinate. Everything aches bottomlessly. Each second, every movement has him flinching and panting, skin pulling skin. 

The reflection from the metal cup relays a heavily bruised nose and swollen lips, Steve tilts it to get a better look at himself. It’s hard to tell exactly which cut is which and where each bruise ends. And that’s just his face, the rest of him isn’t any better off. Steve sighs. If only last night were a dream.

He can’t go to work like this. He can’t leave the house like this, he’ll be reported. People can’t see him and put together what has happened, if they do, he will be hung or burned or drowned by the church. But if he misses work, he doesn’t get paid. And he’s already lost the money from this week’s gravedigging. He sets the cup down on the table and returns to his cot, not bothering to pull up the covers.

Life is often uncaring of circumstance. Work is hard enough to find when you’re sick, especially in a village plagued with dying businesses that require manual labor. He had found a job, one that doesn’t pay a whole lot, one that forces his friend to shoulder a great responsibility and daily terror just to keep them afloat. But it’s a job with steady enough income to count on and contribute. It will be difficult to manage without two weeks pay, but they will scrape by. They always do. But if Steve loses the job, and Bucky is still only a recruit, they will be put on a timer and watch the clock count down. Of that, Steve is certain.

If only these wounds would heal.

Steve falls into a slumber and is soon waking to the sound of the door creaking open and stomping on the wooden floor. He sits up, squinting into the dark,

“Would it kill you to put up some lights?” Bucky asks in slight irritation, a current shadow lumbering as he closes the door. He strikes a match and reaches for candles as Steve makes for the fireplace, eager to get dinner going. One by one, flames come to life and bathe the house in a glow. Steve pours fresh water in the pot and slides jittery fingers over the handle, ready to lift and move it overtop the fire.

“Let me do that,” Bucky huffs, moving Steve aside and heaving the cauldron on the stand. “Are you stupid? You’re gonna rip everything open.”

Steve ignores Bucky’s tone. “How was work?”

Bucky looks at him like he just spoke another language. Bitter confusion. Bucky shakes his head. “It was fine, Steve. Nothing even happened.” Bucky keeps looking at him, like he doesn’t fully understand something. 

“You got another man up there with you?”

“Uh, yeah...” Bucky mumbles, eyes moving around Steve’s face.

“That’s good. What’s he like?” Steve asks but Bucky’s distracted. He’s leaning closer to Steve and searching.

“He’s annoying. Turn your head,” Bucky demands and Steve gives him a look. When Steve doesn’t move, Bucky reaches and takes his chin in hand, roughly jerking it to the side for him. “What the fuck?”

“What?”

“Your face…” 

“What about my face?” Steve asks, pulling his chin from Bucky’s grip. Bucky’s looking at him with wide, angry eyes.

“You look normal!” Bucky snaps. “The marks are all gone, you look fine.”

And Steve realizes that he’s in no pain. Nothing hurts, nothing stings, aches, burns or throbs. He feels normal. Better than normal. He feels good. And then Steve composes a very mean, perhaps unforgivable, idea. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asks. 

Bucky’s eyebrows furrow and he scoffs. “Because of what happened last night.”

“And what happened last night?” Steve pushes and Bucky inhales, head tilting.

“Don’t do this, Steve. Not to me.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t fucking lie to me! I don’t care if we cover up whatever black magic shit happened to you around everybody else, that’s fine. But don’t lie about it to me. You don’t wanna tell me the whole story? Fine. You don’t have to. But don’t. Lie.” Bucky has a finger pointed at Steve’s chest and his eyes are alight. 

“Bucky,” Steve says softly. Bucky’s eyebrows raise in a challenge.

“What, Steve?”

“You were asleep when I came home last night.”

“Bullshit,” Bucky spits. Steve sighs.

“I think maybe you had another one of your nightmares.” When he suggests this, he knows this is awful, what he’s saying, what he’s denying. But the less Bucky knows about this unholy business, the better off he’ll be. In a week, this will be forgotten. And they can return to routine, to hope, and promising.

“I was not…” Bucky closes his eyes before his voice rises. “...having a fucking nightmare, Steve! You came in here looking like you fell in a goddamned meat grinder! You wouldn’t tell me what happened, but I’m not stupid! Something happened and you got all witched up, all ritualed or something, I don’t know!”

Steve sits in the creaky chair and looks at Bucky with the most patronizing face he can muster. “Bucky, you know you get nightmares when you're overwhelmed. You’re nervous because of this new job, it’s making you dream these things up. It wouldn’t be the first time. Look at me, Bucky, I’m fine.”

Bucky remains standing, accusing finger still pointed and at the ready. But he’s thinking now. Big grey eyes are flickering with reasons.

“No,” he murmurs. “No, I didn’t dream it up.” The words come fast but loose and slightly slurred and his finger starts to droop. He won’t meet Steve’s eyes and he knows that Bucky’s considering the possibility. “I didn’t dream it up,” he repeats.

Steve gets up and walks to the cupboard to fetch some potatoes. He peels them on the little wooden table and he can tell by the lack of footsteps that Bucky hasn’t moved. There’s no pain anywhere in his body and he can hardly believe it. Maybe last night was a horrid dream shared by the both of them. Oh, just let him wish.

Once the potatoes are peeled, Steve walks to the fireplace to plop them into the cauldron. Bucky shuffles out of the way and crosses his arms.

“Take off your shirt.”

Steve takes a couple breaths before turning to Bucky. He’s chewing on his lip and waiting. He doesn’t know for certain that the stitches are gone. He can’t feel them tugging at his flesh anymore which is something, but the thought of gambling on it makes Steve anxious.

With his eyes still on Bucky, he undoes the buttons with shaky fingers. He holds this extreme eye contact in purely performative confidence. Steve lets the thin cotton slide off his shoulders and relies on Bucky’s face to reveal the outcome.

And Bucky looks forlorn. His pink lips pulled into a chapped frown, his shoulders sagging and eyes blinking. “You had…” he whispers, eyes on Steve’s chest. “You had a gash.” He gestures a vertical slice and Steve shakes his head.

“Satisfied?” Steve asks. He was going to say something else in his head, something nicer. But he’s always been better at anger. “Prepare the carrots,” he says. “Please.”

 

⇞

 

An orphanage crumbling. That’s what Bucky dreams off. It’s floors work to swallow him and Steve up, floorboards splintering and chomping with nails embedded in wooden gums. It’s a place long gone. Its’ abuse a memory that revisits on snowy nights when the fire dies early.

 

⇞

 

Steve marches to the graveyard in one of Bucky’s old coats. The schedule works in his favor; Bucky leaves before him, unaware that Steve’s been slipping his old coat off the rack each morning since the mugging and murder. And it’s a good thing because Steve doesn’t know how he would answer any questions pertaining. But he gets home before Bucky and hangs the coat up in it’s rightful place before he can notice, so it’s fine. After the third day, it just becomes pattern.

Sam isn’t working today and Steve wishes for the company. He and Bucky have hardly talked in the past few days and he yearns to hear words spoken. Reading names of gravestones is no substitute for conversation. His shovel leans against the mausoleum like it always does and he picks it up. Then he walks to where the rows of headstones stretch out beyond in clusters of knots and gets to work. The days are getting colder and this harsh air sinks into the dirt and welds it together with frost. 

Dig. Heave.

Under the pearly morning sky. Dig. Heave.

Steve is only halfway done the first plot and and he’s growing bored. He whistles. He hums childhood rhymes and songs he hears from church. He thinks about what they’ll have for dinner. He wishes these fucking holes would dig themselves.

There’s space where dirt once was.

His shovel sinks into nothing and he stumbles forward a step. Steve’s three feet lower than he was, the smell of wet ground more potent and colder down here. Glancing around tells him nothing, he’s in a hole he doesn’t remember fully digging. If he still had a pocket watch, he’d check to see how much time has gone by. Steve looks to the sky to gage the sun’s position and finds that it’s low in the sky. Still morning.

He throws the shovel landward and scrambles from the grave onto grass. Steve sinks to his knees with a gasp. The day’s marked plots are all dug. Perfect geometric rectangles all gone, factory stamped out, drilled and removed, mechanical witchcraft. Where is all the dirt?

Damp soil makes stains on his hand me down pants, knee patches bleeding mud onto his knobby knees as he kneels in this perfect confusion. Steve looks to the sky again just to double check that it’s still daytime. It is. His hands begin to tremble and his breath comes out in quick little huffs; Steve made these holes. He did. He feels it in his nail beds and how they vibrate. He feels it in how his vocal cords fold and contort but make no noise. He feels it in how his gums pulsate, rotten sweet cherries in summers gone.

For a broken piece of time, the universe bent to meet him. 

 

⇞

 

Bucky’s first week in the southern tower is muchly similar to that very first day. He’s quiet, vigilant, and serious in a way only the naive can be. 

“It’s Friday, Barnes,” sings Barton. “You going drinking?”

“No.”

“What does a boy like you do on his free nights?”

“Nothing, really. Don’t have the money to do much.” Bucky halfway shrugs. He doesn’t like Barton a whole lot, but there’s little to do all day but answer him.

“Aw, c’mon. It’s payday! I’m taking a pretty girl out for a drink and a dance,” Barton smiles. Bucky nods.

A forceful gust screams through the forest, up the tower and bends all the trees with a ripple of snaps. The iron tower groans against the wind. This body of twisted trees down below are severed arms, shoulder bones all roots in the earth with fingers reaching up towards an argentate sky. Creeping and crawling and writhing in place. Bucky doesn’t think it’s possible to ever grow used to the dread.

“Maybe I’ll take a friend out for a drink.” Bucky muses and Barton slaps him on the back. If he and Steve don’t start talking again soon, he’ll go mad.

“Atta boy, Barnes.”

 

⇞

 

The Bell Toll Tavern is the only bar in town. The only one at the bottom of the hill, anyway, where those who don’t own wine racks live. Monday through Thursday, the place is echoed, just a few stragglers who drink away their sorrows occupy the thin wood walls. But on payday, the tavern’s an antirhythmic performance. 

Bartenders deal out steins like playing cards, flicking them with ease to rosy-cheeked gamblers. Steve and Bucky sit at a long wooden table with their third poorly fermented beers in hand. Tipsy. Maybe Steve more so than Bucky, he’s such a little thing. That’s alright, the less gold Bucky has to spend to get Steve drunk the better. And Bucky can tell that Steve’ll be there soon because their knees keep bumping under the table and Steve doesn’t shy from his gaze even as his cheeks color.

“How much you earn as a recruit anyway?” Steve asks.

“Thirty six a week,” grins Bucky. “That’s nearly double what I was making at the boaters.”

“S’not one hundred and twenty four, though,” Steve says with a hint of a smile. At least, Bucky thinks it’s one. He shakes his head and takes a gulp.

“No, Sir, it’s not. A couple months of this, though. Then I’ll be promoted to soldier. And officer after that.” His stein comes down on the table with a thud.

Steve wrinkles his nose. “So, is this a celebration of some sort? First week as a Watchman recruit?” 

“Yeah, something like that.”

They stumble home drunk, Steve’s weight leaning against Bucky as they shuffle down the empty streets and into their house. He dumps Steve onto his cot and works on lighting a couple candles. Maybe someday soon they’ll be able to afford oil lamps. With his back turned to Steve and the alcohol pushing the words from his mouth, Bucky speaks.

“Steve, I wanna know what happened last week.” 

With no fire crackling and the wind in one of it’s rare standstills, the quiet is eerie. Bucky gives Steve a few seconds to answer before turning back around to face him. He’s halfway laying in bed, propped up on the wall behind him and knees bent.

“Nothin’ happened last week.”

“You’re gonna tell me why you came home all bloody and stitched up and why everything was gone the next day,” Bucky says as sternly as he can, really trying not to slur. He carries a candle over and places in between their beds on the floor before taking a seat on his own. “I don’t want excuses or lies, you can talk to me, Steve.”

There isn’t a lot of light in here and they’re just shadows put in place. Bucky can see marbles where Steve’s eyes are, glassy round and shiny, cold and compact, unyielding and stubborn in shape and intent.

“I told you, you’re havin’ nightmares.”

“Why’re you lying to me?”

“Not lyin’.”

“Are you still mad that I put myself in the tower?” Bucky asks. “Hmm? Is that it?”

Steve peels himself up from where he lounges and careens his way across the tiny space in between their beds until he’s sitting next to Bucky. His eyes are still marbles. Even when intoxicated, Bucky’s intimidated.

“I’m not mad at you,” Steve slurs.

Bucky tilts his head to meet Steve’s eyes. “Then what is it, Stevie?” He knows it hits something in Steve because his glass eyes fracture.

“Don’t call me Stevie, you can’t call-” hiccup, “call me that. I like it too much. Makes me think of when everyone was alive. My ma, and your sisters. So, I’m just Steve now.” 

“Okay then, just Steve. Talk to me,” Bucky says as tersely as he can and Steve’s jaw tightens and Bucky likes it. He might not be able to get Steve to admit anything but at least he can make him hurt for lying. 

Steve talks low. “I’m worried about you, Bucky.” Bucky just shakes his head as Steve shifts next to him. “I really am.”

“No, Steve. I’m worried about you,” he whispers, and means to jab a finger in the middle of Steve’s chest where a line of stitches once marched, but his vision is a little off and he misses the center. 

“Look at me, Bucky. I’m fine.” And that’s the excuse. Steve looks fine, there’s no proof of anything and it kills Bucky. “You know how realistic your nightmares can get, remember? Don’t you?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“So, let it go, Bucky,” Steve breathes. When Bucky doesn’t buckle under his gaze, Steve sighs and leans into him. Sober Steve doesn’t touch Bucky very much, only to punch him. But drunk Steve doesn’t have as high a fence. Bucky’s sitting rigid as Steve’s temple rests on his shoulder and he stares straight ahead; the warmth of another body is welcome but he’s still brimming with too much anger and confusion to relax wholly. The alcohol in his system fights against agitation and Bucky sighs.

“I care about you, Bucky. I care about the future,” Steve mumbles deep, vibrations from his jaw moving against Bucky’s arm. “I think I care too much,” he slurs. “Don’t you care about me? And gettin’ out of here?”

“Of course I do, idiot,” Bucky huffs. Steve peels himself off of Bucky and cups the back of his neck so that Bucky has to look at him.

“Then listen to me. Nothing happened to me last week. Nothing at all. You’re gettin’ worked up over the job and that’s why you’re havin’ nightmares, okay? We have to get out of Hurstbane, so you have to have nightmares, get it?” Even through the slurring, Steve says it so gently, with so much care and conviction that Bucky sways. Gone are the marble eyes, this is Steve. It throws him off.

“Yeah, maybe,” mumbles Bucky. 

And then Steve is gone, warm and bony hands no longer offering company and reassurance in the cold as Steve crawls back into bed. Maybe it’s all this nightmare talk, or maybe it’s the stress but Bucky dreams that night. Of violence and screaming and that forest dread. 

 

⇞

 

Two weeks later comes the first snowfall of the season. A blanket that covers all gravel and wood and Steve is out of a job. He tells Bucky he’s headed down to the crematorium today to see if there are any openings for the winter. Bucky says ‘good thinking’ and leaves for work. 

The snow soaks through his poorly made boots but the walk to the crematorium isn’t very far and he’ll be home before frostbite can do any sort of lasting damage. He only has a block more to go when familiar faces come into view and his heart plummets. Steve stops mid stride when one of his attackers makes eye contact with him. He too, stills. He’s with his friends, but they don’t notice Steve yet. It gives him a two second head start.

Steve has a pool of newfound anger. He marches with purpose towards the three men, all of which tower over him without a second thought. Two of them, now aware of Steve’s presence, move to grab his arms and hold him down but he dodges their outstretched reaches. He slips right passed them and doesn’t even think about it as his fist comes up to slam against flesh. The man stumbles backwards and Steve turns to his right, landing a kick he never learned how to do straight into a solid chest. He ducks when he’s grabbed at, snatches and twists wrists until they snap, pulls hair down until faces collide with his knees. 

It’s all over before Steve can register any of it. He’s staring at the bent men on the ground, who slowly pick themselves up and scramble away from him. There’s dialogue missing, words that are emitted but omitted. The only thing registering is that he feels good. Steve looks around wildly to see if any curious citizen had witnessed the deed. But by this time of day, everyone's already at work it seems.

Steve’s breathing picks up and his whole body starts to shake. The same feeling from the graveyard is returning to him in waves of heavy heat. Throbbing gums and twitching fingernails. A sharp pain in his temple has him gasping and leaning on a storefront for support. 

He’s got to get home. Through the explosion in his brain, Steve can barely open his eyes. He begins walking towards his house, hurried, panicked steps propelling him forward in lurches. The pain worsens, adding white to his vision in sharp screams. He ducks into an archway leading into some sort of cramped storage space between two businesses and sinks to the ground, trembling hands coming up to grab at his head.

His tongue is pulled in every direction at once, his throat coughing up words he doesn’t own. He’s speaking in a language long dead and forgotten, Steve hears himself mutter the syllables. They leave his mouth in a frenzy and dear God, it’s beyond satisfying. The way this haunted vocabulary scratches an itch that’s been there his whole life, like this is his rightful state. Crouching and panting, muttering and in pain but powerful. So filled with rage and potential and _powerful._

His bones fold. They collapse in vertical clacks, sliding into themselves like telescopes. Steve sees white.

An ivory crow sails out of the grimy alley, darkly flapping looking more like a snow covered bat than bird. It swings up into the air and grasps with tiny claws at a gutter. They scrape and don’t catch, the bird tumbles downward before wildly flailing it’s white wings and jerking upward. 

Then it caws, icy. And soars up and weaving in between tall wooden buildings and stone churches and shops. It twirls ungloriously through cold winds and avoids structures by millimeters. With wings carrying it through the town, fluttering clumsily overtop rotting rooftops, it caws. 

 

⇞

 

“Get some sleep, you look like shit!” Barton calls after Bucky. The wind blows and sends some snow avalanching off the roof of the watchtower as Bucky descends the ladder. The metal lets out hollow, deep squeals as the weight shifts. Then he’s on the ground, marching home through muddy snow.

The sky darkens earlier now and by the time Bucky makes it home, light is almost absent. Steve isn’t home when Bucky returns. No lights, no fire, door locked. Maybe he’s out.

Bucky starts cooking rice and checks the cupboard for any bread, turning it over in hand to make sure it’s not moldy. As much as he wants to head down to the Bell Toll Tavern, he knows they have to save their shillings now that Steve is out of a job. Bucky sighs. He wanted to ask Steve how it went at the crematorium. Two people on one man’s wage is pulling on his shoulders.

The water is just starting to boil when a thick whack on the shutters has Bucky jumping in place. It’s the telltale sound of a dumb bird flying into the window. It happens enough to recognize the noise. He opens to door to peek out and see if it’s flown away and squints at the little shape on the frosted gravel. What an odd bird it is. The color of lace with stark blue eyes, red bleeding out from its beak. Bucky goes back inside to fetch his gloves; he has to move the carcass before it starts to smell and bring out all the rodents.

He shuffles over to where their clothes are kept. Worn leather gloves sit on a leaning shelf and an empty coat rung stares at him. Bucky’s old coat is gone. He blinks. Then shakes his head and slips the gloves on.

Bucky’s thinking very hard about where he could have left his coat as he crosses the room, opens the door and steps outside. He’s still thinking hard about it when his eyes move to where a sad and bleeding white crow had laid and finding something else there entirely. Bucky’s coat is there. Bundling Steve up as he sits against the wood paneling clutching his bleeding nose.

“Steve?” 

Steve staggers to his feet, wiping at his nostrils. He pushes passed Bucky, crunching on the light snow and through the doorway. Bucky follows and slams the door behind him.

“I guess we’re not gonna talk about this either?” Bucky asks. Steve hangs up Bucky’s old jacket back on the rack and tends to the pot on the fire.

He sighs. “Just got in a fight is all, with some thugs by the crematorium.” Bucky remains where he is, watching Steve with the same vigilance he watches the forest with.

“So, why were you just sitting outside the house? Why didn’t you come in?”

Steve’s dabbing at his nose now with a rag, the crimson stream thinning out to a rusty orange color on the white cotton. “I was waiting for the bleeding to stop. I didn’t want you getting all worked up over it. You got enough going on with your job, you don’t need to worry about me, too.” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything because Steve is somewhat right. He hates it when Steve gets in fights. But what about the bird? That _did_ happen, there was a white crow laying with a red beak on the cold ground right under the little window. 

“Did you see a bird out there?” Bucky asks. Steve’s head turns to him but he doesn’t say anything. The fire crackles and Bucky waits for an answer. “A white one?”

Steve purses his lips, like he’s thinking or remembering. “No,” he shakes his head. Bucky takes a deep breath and holds it. If he stays quiet and expectant, Steve might add to the answer. He doesn’t.

“Alright,” says Bucky. He clicks his tongue. “Nevermind then. Let’s eat.”

 

⇞

 

He’s in the tower and it’s swaying underneath this heavy Watchman boots. Bucky tries to move with it but he can’t, he can only clutch the railing for support. Barton’s beside him and he’s firing his gun and yelling. The noise wraps around him and his fingers are pulling the rifle off his shoulder, slipping down the wooden belly, catching on the metal plates but it won’t move.

Screaming below. Trees growing up and up, branches melting while trunks rise higher. Red fire from the oil lamps, red blood on snow. A huge deep humming from the forest, harmonizing with groaning metal and a flock of white crows. 

Bucky jolts upright covered in sweat and shaking. His sheets are soaked and he gets up to pace around in the dark. To place his feet on solid ground. These dreams are getting worse with no sign of stopping; the only remedy a resignation from the Watch and a returning to a safe job where he’s paid in scrap. It is not an option.

Sleep doesn’t return to Bucky and he knows his head will be aching all day long. There’s little to do about it. He lays in their little black house with thin wooden walls and puts his palms together. Bucky can’t remember the last time he prayed. Probably two winters ago when Steve almost died right there in that same bed he’s laying in now. Just a few feet away. He had convulsed and shook so hard that his teeth cut his tongue and Bucky panicked beside him. When was the last time Steve had a fit?

Bucky prays for safety. For himself up in the tower. For Steve out on the streets. For them both here in their own home. His hands tremble as he prays but slowly, slowly, they still.

And then, hours later, when the sun begins to show, Bucky slips his boots and old coat on and carefully leaves the house before Steve wakes. He walks the short route to the crematorium in an early morning haze while the world is still white and frozen. Muddy, day old snow turning to sludge and sticking to the bottom of his shoes as he walks. He has to wait outside the little place for an employee to come and appear with keys jangling in hand.

“Can I help you?” the man asks Bucky, eyeing him uncertainly. He looks familiar but Bucky can’t quite place him. Bucky watches him slot in the key and turn.

“Yeah, I was wondering if Steve Rogers came in here yesterday?” he prompts. The man’s face loses its’ stiffness and he nods, kicking the door open and beckoning Bucky inside. 

“You’re Bucky, I remember you,” the man says. “We met a while back. I’m Sam, I work the graveyard with Steve. Work here in the wintertime, though. Steve looking for a job? Because I’m afraid I took the last open position here.” Sam talks while pulling curtains away from the windows and flicking on the gaslights. Floral bouquets decorate window sills and the front desk along with crooked artwork of even more flowers on the walls. Bucky figures they’re supposed to offer what comfort they can in a crematorium. Somehow even the ones in the paintings don’t look fresh. 

“Oh, yeah. Sam, that’s right.” Bucky runs his fingers along the petals of a flower in a vase on the counter. “So, Steve didn’t come here yesterday?”

Sam leans on the counter from the other side, arms folded. “No. He didn’t come inside, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asks.

“Well, you live with the guy, you know how he is. He was scrapping with some thugs a block upwards, I heard the noise, poked my head out the door and there he is, crazy little guy like a goddamned tornado. The fuckers were taking off before I got two steps out the door. Anyway, it wasn’t my business.” Sam says the last sentence with eyes flicking up to meet Bucky’s. It’s not as much a warning as it is a question. 

Bucky chews on his lip. Steve wasn’t lying. He feels a bit stupid, it’s not like he had an alternate theory to propose.

“Right.” Bucky smiles at Sam. “Well, if there’s ever a need for an extra pair of hands around here, send us a letter.”

“Will do. Stay safe out there, Watchman.” Sam casually salutes as Bucky turns the doorknob. He tilts his head.

“How do you know about that?”

Sam flicks a finger down at his black boots. “Those things on your feet a dead give away. Plus, Steve told me when you registered a while back. You oughta stay safe for his sake, too.” 

Bucky pauses, biting back a harsh response that isn’t warranted. Like he doesn’t know that already, like he doesn’t think about it every minute when he’s in that tower. And Sam’s weekly pay must look a whole lot like Steve’s. Sam knows how little that is. Sam knows that Bucky knows how little that is. 

“Yes, Sir.” He smiles and ducks out the door.

Bucky sticks his hands in his coat pockets on the way home, feeling immature. Maybe Steve’s right and all of this nonsense is in his head. The returning of his nightmares commenced the very same day that he began work as a Watchman and that then was the same night that Steve had wandered in covered in blood. Is it really so absurd an idea that he fell asleep and dreamed it? Bucky’s mind does dream up such terrible things, he knows this fact well.

He’s so lost in possibilities that Bucky doesn’t register that his fingers are rubbing along something in his pocket as he turns thoughts around in his pounding head. Soft and small. He pulls it out and almost drops it, nails just catching the root of a powdery white feather. Bucky blinks at it and ceases walking. He stares at it for a moment, tucks it pack in his pocket and continues home.

 

⇞

 

The weeks pass by smooth and unchanging. Steve keeps looking for work with no success. He doesn’t think he’s plagued anymore; his lungs work fine, he hasn’t caught a cold or a fever, his back doesn’t hurt, his gums don’t bleed, he isn’t fatigued. He’s fine. But the entire town of Hurstbane knows his name and reputation and he can just only open a door before he’s being asked to close it on his way out.

Weeks pass by for Bucky, too. Down in the south tower, things remain calm and creeping. He and Barton fall into a routine. They say ‘good morning’, Barton talks at him, he listens, sometimes he’ll ask questions about Barton’s past, about his old life before living in Hurstbane and Barton will tell him something wild. He’ll spew out colorful tales of gang wars and catacombs and bounty hunters and Bucky can’t tell if he’s lying or not. Not that it would matter, the stories are entertaining no matter if they’re truth or fiction. And though Bucky doesn’t think of he and Barton as friends, he’s grown partially fond of the lopsided conversations they share. 

And then one day in mid winter, there’s an incident. 

The terror isn’t all encompassing like Bucky thought it would be when a strange figure appears in between the trees. In the distance, it’s just a shadow. He already sees it when Barton calls his name in a steely tone, one he’s never heard Barton use and Bucky’s hands come up to point his gun.

He’s steady at first, the adrenaline kicking in. It floods him from neck to heels. Barton points his rifle down at the figure too as it emerges from the forest. Bucky squints. It’s too far, the wind too strong, blowing tiny flakes of white in front of his eyes and he can’t see properly. It’s fleshy in hue, humanoid in shape but shifting. It’s arms just a little too long, it’s gate just a little too jarring, joints just enough off kilter that Bucky’s filled with dread.

It moves from forest edge to the brink of the field. The battleground that sits in between watch tower and trees. Bucky’s breathing in lungfulls, palms sweating. His finger is in place to pull the trigger but he has to wait for a clear shot; he follows the creature while staring down along the barrell. 

“You got a clear shot, Barnes?” Barton asks calmly, voice so steady it pulls Bucky together.

“No,” Bucky whispers. “No, no,” he says louder, shaking his head. Oh, he wishes he didn’t do that, now he has to realign. “Shoot it, Barton! I can’t!” Bucky's hyperventilating. This kind of fear is something new. This creature isn’t moving right, this thing is moving closer.

“Yes, you can kid. Just like target practice,” Barton encourages, his own gun pointed. Bucky's about to squeeze the trigger when the creature erupts in noise. The space where a mouth would be fastened opens and a sickening verse spills out of nonwords. Bucky’s eyes sting with the pricks of tears. He’s so afraid.

There’s a shattering of glass as the oil lamps explode. All four of them that hang on hooks in the corners of the tower become bursting things that splatter hot liquid onto the iron floor, onto Bucky’s hand. 

“Fuck!” he yells, rifle dropping. Clattering. His voice rises an octave. “Barton, shoot it!”

“Pick up your gun.”

“Fuck, okay!” Bucky wheezes, wiping his burning hand on his pants and snatching the rifle from the watchtower floor. “Okay. Okay. Okay!”

“Lean it on the railing.”

Bucky listens, wooden body hitting iron and he’s squatting to get aim. The thing is still approaching them and chanting. Bucky inhales, preparing for the shot. He holds, holds, holds, hands sweating and burning, gut churning and _shoots,_ eyes closing.

The pang echoes and hangs in the air. Like a hammer.

Bucky opens his eyes and looks at Barton. He’s motionless for a second before he then turns to Bucky and nods with his gun still raised. Bucky forces himself to look over the railing. A crooked figure’s corpse laying splayed out, red halo painted in the snow. Unmoving. Dead. Bucky lets out a lungfull and sinks down onto the metal floor of the tower, kneeling. His throat so tight it’s hard to breathe.

Eventually, Barton also lowers his rifle and squats beside him, boots squeaking in spilled oil. “Hey, it’s alright, kid. You did good.”

Barton allows Bucky to sit and breathe, while he uses a match to light the torch in the center of the tower. Flames come to life, whooshing up and out to make a beacon. Once it’s good and going, Barton returns to the railing and sticks out a hand to help Bucky up. His palms aren’t even sweaty.

“Up you go. Let’s hope this thing doesn’t have any friends following it.” And easily, routinely, Barton returns to stance.

 

⇞

 

A report is needed down at the barracks. So, the two Watchmen thunk their way down dull corridors, bypassing a nearly desolate canteen and training rooms. Bucky waits for Barton to knock on Admiral Carter’s mahogany door; the two of them share a meaningless glance with heavy rifles strapped to their backs. Dark wood swings open to reveal Tony Stark and the gunsmith side steps out of the doorway as Admiral Carter beckons them inside her elegant office.

“Afternoon, Admiral. (Afternoon, Admiral).” Barton says and Bucky echoes. She’s grabbing the nearest fountain pen and log book while Stark sinks into an armchair in the corner of the room.

“Barton, Barnes. Good afternoon, you’re here for a report, yes?” She looks up, pen poised.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Bucky lets Barton do the talking. Details are recorded: the ammunition spent, the time of day, the distance the bullet traveled, the reaction of the trees or if there was one at all. Admiral Carter doesn’t give the ink much time to dry before closing the logbook and folding her hands atop the leather cover. Dust particles float around her head.

“You’ll report to the eastern watchtower starting tomorrow.” She’s only looking at Bucky. He sputters.

“Why?”

“Because that’s where you’re needed, Lieutenant Barnes.”

Bucky’s eyes widen. “Yes, ma’am. Is Barton being transferred as well?” His head swivels to look at his companion and Admiral Carter’s eyebrows raise. Tony Stark in the corner does nothing. 

“If he should like,” answers Carter. 

Barton supplants words for blinking in Bucky’s direction and he holds the younger man’s pleading, terrified gaze in cooperation. Both of them don’t know what will happen if Bucky is left ungrounded up in the tower. He turns to Admiral Carter.

“I’ll go,” Barton sighs and Carter fills out another transfer form.

 

⇞

 

He’s still just out of reality, a remnant of the fear when he slinks inside their house forty minutes later. Steve is reading the local newspaper, which consists of four of the thinnest slices of paper Bucky has ever seen bent together and peeling away from Steve who works to keep them upright and readable. Looking for jobs, no doubt. He’s folded up in a creaky chair by the fire, scanning, the smell of cooking meat lazily wafting to where Bucky stands.

“How was work?” Steve asks like he does everyday. Absently. Bucky’s throat closes as he hangs his Watchman coat up on the rack. He tries to answer with words but only a strangled hum comes out. The answer seems to satisfy Steve because he unfurls from his chair and balls up the newspaper to add it into the fire. Bright flames swallow up dry paper with a growl. 

“I went to the butcher today,” says Steve. “Just as they were closing up to see if they had any scraps or something. And they did, they tossed me a rabbit. So, that’s dinner.” He smiles.

“They just gave you a whole rabbit?”

Steve hands Bucky a wooden spoon as he approaches the pan of sizzling meat. “Yeah, said they were just gonna throw it out anyway.” 

“Oh,” grins Bucky. Empty. “Lucky.”

They haven’t had good, fresh meat in months. It warms them from their thankful bellies, tongues squirming in their mouths to hurry, hurry, and swallow. No words are exchanged during the meal, just chairs skreeking against the floor and hearty gulping. Steve eyes Bucky as they feast. Those grey eyes are somewhere far off, indecipherable and worrying and it has Steve sweating against the mid winter chill.

Steve pauses in shoveling another spoonful down his throat. Bucky’s eyes remain trained on the table and foggy as he chews, hardly a glance spared to Steve since he lumbered in the door. Wordlessly, Steve slides his bowl over to join Bucky’s and it wobbles, almost tipping but Bucky catches it with his spoon. Wood on metal, a pathetic thunk. “Thanks.” 

He starts on the remnants of Steve’s meal and Steve watches him scarf it down all hazy. The last chunk of meat is being spooned into his mouth when Bucky’s face begins to pale. His eyes fall into focus. An alarming white starts in his neck and creeps up onto his face and then he is sliding the creaky chair backwards and sprinting to the other side of the room to fling the shutters open with a bang. Bucky’s puke splats on the dirt. It slides down his chin and onto the side paneling of the house and he brings his knuckles up to press against warm lips. He heaves once. Twice. It takes everything to will his dinner down, he won’t get another. The food needs to stay put. A full stomach always helps to get a good night's sleep, and Bucky needs all the odds stacked in his favor after the day that was presented. 

Walking to the water barrel, Steve’s frowning, concerned as he scoops out a mug full for Bucky and waits for him to finish. Once Bucky slumps back fully into the room and clacks the shutters shut with a jerk of the rusty contraption to keep it in place, he strides across the room in three steps to approach Steve with a hand outstretched. Steve hands over the water. It spills down and over the rim of the mug, down Bucky’s throat and into his collar, heavy gulps drain the cup and then Bucky’s shoves passed Steve to sit on his bed, stinking of meat, vomit, sweat, oil and fired ammunition.

Bucky’s hands come to rake through his hair and his eyes are gone again. The fire crackles, the wind howls. Mutts bark in the distance, crows caw above, the church bell rings seven times. Steve takes a seat on his own cot.

“You wanna talk about it?” Steve asks. 

Bucky inhales. “I saw one today. A witch from the forest,” he whispers. And Steve doesn’t blink, such sights are expected of a Watchman.

“You kill it?”

“Yeah,” Bucky laughs. “I almost didn’t, though.”

“But you did.”

“Yeah...I did.” Bucky’s rubbing at his head, looking at the floor and still just as pale and gone, gone, gone as before. Steve doesn’t know how to surface him.

“How are you feeling now?” Steve asks, and it feels strange to ask this question in pertinence to reality. It usually only comes after nightmares. Bucky covers his face.

“Really bad.” His voice cracks. Bucky’s not crying, he’s just ruined. Steve considers telling Bucky that he’s safe now, that the night Watch are on duty and that here, in their shithole of a home sitting in the center of town, they are safe. But even thinking about vocalizing any of it feels like an insult. Bucky’s not stupid, he knows all of that. He just doesn’t feel it.

The sight of a grown man trembling has a way of alchemizing wisps of fear into something slimy and tangible. Steve’s skin pricks where stitches once were. His palms sweaty. Because if Steve is right here, perching right across from Bucky and corrupting a perceived security just by existing, how many others sit just as close? How many others sit dark and deadly in their homes and count bell tolls, too?

Steve can only watch Bucky quiver for a moment longer before it starts hurting too much. His bed shifts as he removes himself from it and sits next to Bucky. Hesitantly, he brings a hand up to rub Bucky’s back. He could say, ‘I told you so’ or ‘well, you knew what you were signing up for. And it’s only going to get worse,’ but he doesn’t. He just scratches at Bucky’s nape, lulling him like he used to after horrid dreams.

“I swear, Steve.” Bucky croaks. “Once I’m Officer, and I’m earning that one hundred twenty four, I’m saving it all. We’re saving it all. And we’re gonna leave. You hear me? We’re fucking leaving.” Bucky’s still covering his face so the words come out muffled, their doctrine faltering under shaky palms.

“Sounds good to me, Buck.”

“I’m serious,” Bucky whispers. 

“I know.”

 

⇞

 

The tower east of town is twice the height of its southern counterpart. When Bucky starts there a week later he finds that it’s older, not as soundly built as his previous post and the iron platform sometimes catches in those harsh gusts and the whole thing is sent swaying. Much like the forest dread, Bucky’s afraid there isn’t any getting used to it. In these slow moments of motion, Bucky clutches at the peeling railing while Barton stands with feet planted and they watch the forest. There are fewer words spoken here than the southern tower; Bucky’s back to being as silent as his very first day as a Watchman and even Barton’s mouth stays shut. The noises around them make up for their silence.

Metal groans underfoot, singing with every sway. It echoes in a square, three dimensional moans that bounce off corners and return to them in two. Angular laments of the town and its’ place in this world. 

The wind uses the tower like a leviathan flute with notes ringing out deep enough to shake their bones and thicken blood. And this forest before them - oh, how it speaks. In a language so _unnatural_ , the vernacular of beasts so unfamiliar to Bucky that he can’t begin to untangle meaning from it. He’s learned that you hear things differently up here. 

A gust of wind hits the tower and it moves with a bellow. Bucky’s stomach lurches and he grabs the railing, head going dizzy. It feels like the tower’s motion goes on and goes, in slow rotations of wagon wheels and then Bucky’s vision is going black.

He hits the iron platform with a thud.

“Hey, Barnes. Wake up.” Barton’s hitting his face with a ringed hand and the cold metal stings. Bucky’s eyes shoot open and he has to blink several times to see again.

“Shit, what happened?” 

“You fainted,” Barton says helping him to his feet. The thumping of their boots echoing as Bucky staggers. “You getting any sleep?”

Bucky sighs and rubs at his temples, a dull ache just starting to bloom deep in his skull. His shoulder cold and tingly from falling on it. “No.”

Nothing unnatural emerges from the forest that day. But in the distance, the torch flares up from the southern tower and Bucky’s blood freezes. He grabs at Barton’s coat and points to the faroff speck of orange and doesn’t miss how Barton’s grip on his rifle tightens. They spend the day tense and cold and then Bucky goes home with fuzz eating at the corner of everything, vision never quite clearing.

 

⇞

 

“I was transferred,” he says to Steve once they’re both laying in bed and the fire is dying. The room gently smells like smoke and another rabbit meal. “A little while back. I’m in the eastern tower now. Did I tell you that?” Bucky knows he didn’t.

“No. Why?”

“Why?” Bucky’s eyebrows furrow. “I don’t know, they said they need me there.”

Steve turns to face Bucky from his cot, using his arm as a pillow and glaring. “They couldn’t get someone else?” Bucky laughs dryly.

“I am the someone else, Steve,” Bucky explains and lounges on his back, staring at the wooden ceiling. He can feel Steve’s accusatory stare and he doesn’t want to look. “I was promoted, too. Soldier now, that’s one away from officer.”

Steve hums.

“And I’m gonna earn more now, so we’ll have a little extra to buy a remedy or two soon. You’ve probably been aching.” Steve just watches him from across the space and Bucky’s eyes dart around the ceiling.

“I don’t need remedies,” Steve says.

“Why not?”

“Because I feel fine. We don’t need to spend gold on them if they’re not necessary, right?” Bucky turns over on his side when Steve says this.

“Well, no. But…” One look at Steve’s jaw and he stops, gulps and then continues. “Why do you not need them? Why- why are you fine? I mean.”

Steve blinks. “I don’t know, Bucky. I just am.”

“But you’re never fine, that’s kind of the thing, Steve. Those things don’t just go away.”

Steve’s lip curls ever so slightly. “Why are you complaining about saving money?”

“I’m not! I’m just curious as to why you don’t want medicine when we can afford it!” 

“Because I don’t need it.”

“You always need it!” Bucky props his head up to scowl at Steve. Steve lays there, relaxed, chest moving slow and heavy eyes blinking every couple seconds. 

“Well, I don’t anymore. Guess I grew out of it,” he bites.

“Walk me through that.”

“What?” Steve asks.

“Tell me how you outgrew the fucking plague, Steve.” 

Steve sighs and rolls his eyes. “I’m not a doctor, I don’t know.”

“Take your best guess and try to explain it because I don’t understand.” Bucky sits up to glower at his friend. 

“You don’t need to understand!” The anger leaks into Steve’s voice. “What’s your fucking problem?”

Bucky gapes. “What’s _my_ problem?”

“Yeah, why’re you being such an ass about this?”

_“Because you don’t talk to me anymore!”_ Bucky explodes. His chest is heaving, his throat raw, fingers twitchy. “You never fucking talk to me!” Steve is still only watching him, no hint of a retort on his lips. Bucky continues. “And when you do, you lie to me. Or you say things that don’t make sense! I’m so tired of it, Steve.”

“You need to get some sleep. Some real sleep, and then we can talk in the morning. You’re acting off tonight,” Steve says, cold and absolute.

“No!” Bucky slams a hand on the bed frame. “We are talking about this _now!_ ” Steve swings his legs over the side of his cot and the blankets half slide off. 

“Fine.”

“Okay!”

“The floor is yours, Buck.”

The fire spits dust into the cramped and shadowed house, flickering coals smoking black as they die.

“First, there was that night,” starts Bucky. Steve tilts his head. “When you came home looking like a corpse. No, don’t fucking roll your eyes, it wasn’t a dream, it was real! It was! I know I get nightmares but that wasn’t one of them. And then, I went down to the crematorium and Sam said-”

“Whoa, whoa. You what? You followed me?” Steve asks, offended and alarmed.

“Sam said that you got in a fight and-”

“And I told you that I got in a fight! I never lied to you!”

“Sam said that they ran away from you! What did you do, Steve? They should have beaten you bloody, but they fucking ran away! So, what did you do?” Bucky’s fingers are twisting into the sheets and Steve’s jaw is set like bricks. He doesn’t answer.  
“And then there was the bird that flew into the window. Hit it’s beak, I heard it clear as anything. And I go outside and you’re sitting there with a bloody nose and the next day I find white feathers in the jacket you were wearing, I’m not crazy, Steve. I’m not.  
“And...and then. Then you bring home rabbits for dinner? Steve, I’ve worked at the butchers, they don’t sell _rabbits_. They skin pigs, sheep, lamb. They sell chicken and mutt sometimes. But never rabbit. You have to go into the _forest_ to hunt for rabbit. So, where have you been getting the rabbit?  
“And now!” Bucky pauses, eyes blown and lips drawn. “You’re all. Better. Now? Don’t need remedies? Some witch fix you up nice and good?”

“Shut up,” Steve growls. Clear, cold cut. Bucky’s eyebrows raise.

“I know when I’m dreaming, Steve,” Bucky says softly. 

Steve brings his hands up to card through his hair in a worried manner. At least it looks that way to Bucky. “No, you don’t. You’re really scaring me.”

“Stop it! Stop it, please, fucking stop it!” roars Bucky, fists shaking with anger, tears springing to the backs of his eyes, thick and salty. His temper shakes him, lack of sleep making his head pound like metal, fear gnawing at his bones like rats on a dead bird and sadness for what everything has become too heavy on his sore shoulders. Dear god, does this ever end?

Steve stands, holed socks soaking up hyperborean floorboards and Bucky watches him. He pads quietly over to Bucky, the outside noises drowning out his little ones, and comes right up to Bucky. He frowns, preparing for Steve to punch him and almost laughs at the conjecture. To Steve, what other answer is there but violence? His fists ball up, Bucky tightens his stomach and waits for the blow. He then flinches when Steve’s hand comes up to his face, thumb pressing gently on his forehead and he has to look cross eyed up at it.

Steve’s mouthing words. Echoes of whispers filling their little home, eyes fluttering shut. The air shifts and Bucky’s fingers come up to reach at Steve’s hand, so he can pull it away, so he can ask what the fuck he’s doing. Bucky yelps, Steve’s skin burns into his. Red hot and sharp like a spilled oil lamps and Bucky tries again. He can’t even wrap a hand around Steve’s skinny wrist without screaming. His lungs are on fire, too.

“Steve!” he shouts. Begs. The only answer he gets is an added touch. Steve’s other thumb pressing against Bucky’s bottom lip as Steve continues to chant. Everything moves angled. Tips and invites gravity with it. It feels like he’s atop the tower caught in a strong wind.

Panicked, Bucky pushes backwards and his head slams into the wall. There’s no relief at being broken from Steve’s touch, he’s still spiraling, panting and fighting tears of confusion. He can already feel a bump starting where his skull banged against wood and he draws his knees up to block Steve from coming closer. Bucky can hardly see, their tiny wooden house is so dark and so cold, so black and brown and gray. It feels like fear is all he’s ever known.

“Stay the fuck away from me!” Bucky screams, voice breaking as he scrambles forward, on his knees. He reaches and pulls at Steve’s shoulders to make sure he’s solid. That his shadow isn’t a trick of the light. He needs Steve back, he hates Steve. It’s an awkward position to throw a punch from but it doesn’t stop him; Bucky rockets a fist at Steve’s throat. Steve’s out of the way by that time and his first plummets and then carries his body weight tumbling off the bed. Everything's spinning and slipping. Steve catches Bucky’s shirt before his face can hit the ground and Bucky twists out of his grasp, flopping.

More unwords come out of Steve’s mouth. Those same horrible syllables from the forest, but so much closer, so much crisper with so much more meaning that Bucky thinks he might die of fright. He’s so sick of being afraid.

Shaking with rage, bruised up and dizzy, Bucky launches himself at Steve. He tackles him by the middle and throws him on the ground, his shoulder knocking into Steve’s chest and Steve wheezes. He’s struggling for breath when Bucky reels back to punch his nose. Once, twice. He punches Steve. He’s going to land the third when Steve grabs his fist and holds it.

“Bucky, stop!” he grits. Bucky feels like he’s dissolving, everything is coming apart. Hurting Steve feels _real_ , it’s flesh against flesh and he needs it. 

“You goddamned witch! What happened to you?” Bucky yells, trying to wrestle his fist free from Steve’s grasp. _“I kill fuckers like you!”_ Bucky can’t get his arm free and he looks at Steve’s hand with wonder. It morphs into anger and he growls. He uses his other hand to grip at his wrist and yank, but Steve’s grasp is like iron. 

Steve spits out a single syllable and then the whole world tilts another way. What was left is right and Bucky’s tipping to the side in a mad man’s freefall. 

“Stop it!” pleads Bucky. “Please!” He doesn’t even register that he’s crying. “What are you doing to me?” Steve’s lifting him, hoisting him with great effort onto the bed and Bucky sees three Steves. Everything's all shapes but no meaning, just lines and vague colors. Nothing’s real except for fear. Steve is muttering something that sounds like, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ and his hands are on Bucky’s cheeks, in his hair, on his neck, so warm, hot, burning as he keeps muttering unnaturalities. 

Then Bucky’s eyes are falling shut, his panicked gasps turning into even breaths and his hands no longer trembling but laying flat. Steve stumbles backwards, ribs clattering and he collapses back into his own bed, staring wide eyed at his friend. He’s not very practiced at this. But that may have been enough.

Across from Steve, Bucky forgets. 

When Bucky awakens in the morning, Steve has to look away quickly so that he isn’t caught staring. He gets up like normal, gets changed and swallows a mug of water. Steve sits up.

“Hey,” he says. Testing.

Bucky turns around, raising an eyebrow. “Hey,” he says back, expectant. Steve’s fingers nervously tap at his knee.

“You sleep alright?”

Bucky’s thinking, face scrunching up and blinking. Steve’s heart hammers. “Yeah, actually. Best sleep I’ve had in awhile,” he says, and slips his coat and boots on without another word. “See you.”

Steve exhales for what feels like the first time in hours.

 

⇞

 

The days drag on, long and cold. Each sun giving Hurstbane just a few more minutes of light each day until mid winter turns to late winter. Within just one month, Bucky reports over six incidents at the eastern tower. The fear never gets any less severe. He shakes up there in the tower in his Watchman boots next to unwavering Barton and starts a habit of praying every night. He tries not to let Steve see.

“We’re going drinking!” Bucky announces, bouncing in the door one night. Steve looks up. “I’ve got news and I’ve got gold, let’s go.” 

The Bell Toll Tavern is packed. Shoulder to shoulder with drunks and whores, pockets jingling. Steve’s working on his first ale.

“C’mon, what’s the news?”

Bucky takes a gulp of his beer. “Where do you wanna go once we leave Hurstbane?” he asks. Steve shakes his head.

“What are you talking about?” He knows what Bucky’s talking about. The hope is so, so bittersweet that it’s easier to leave it unacknowledged.

“Where do you wanna _go_ , Stevie?”

“South,” Steve says and Bucky rolls his eyes. A couple more people flood into the tavern and it’s hard to hear Bucky over all the chatter.

“We’ll go south then.” He ignores girls fluttering their eyelashes at him and smiles at Steve all gummy. 

“What are you _talking_ about?” laughs Steve again. “Going south was always the plan. Have you had a few already or something?”

“I’m an officer now! A third officer of the Watch. From now on, I’ll be collecting one hundred and twenty four shillings every fucking week. That’s double what we need to live on, Steve.” Steve nods. “Just a couple weeks saving, a month at most, and we can get boat tickets. Sail right out from Sakers Keep straight to Graycott. South. No more starving and freezing in this goddamn town. We’ll find factory jobs and a real place to live,” Bucky says, tapping a pointer finger on the table with each sentence.

“Holy shit!” Steve’s face lights up. “Congratulations, Buck! That’s amazing news, you must be a hell of a shot. Hey, in another week or two, when the ground softens up I can work the graveyard, use that for food or rent.” Steve raises his glass before drinking and Bucky clanks it.

“Now you’re thinking!”

They stumble home singing into sludge covered streets and empty alleys. Voices loud and echoing, happy and hopeful.

 

⇞

 

Sometimes, when winter ends, spring doesn’t follow right away. An inbetween. And as a result, there’s this heavy, sticky, frosted couple of weeks that feel _unnatural_. The things in the forest must feel it too, because they’re awfully active. On average, Bucky shoots one a day. Barton shoots another. They’ve never breached three, they’ve never had to ring the alarm bell and pull up the rope ladder and slack the metal bars across the watchtower railings. But Bucky fears that they’re getting close.

The fear is taking a toll on him. And for some horrible reason that Bucky can’t shake, the fear reminds him of Steve. Bucky wanders home everyday, shivering and mumbling. And he dreams of bullet bangs and red light. Stitches and branches twisting into shapes with no meaning. Of orphanage floors and found family that distort into horrors he’s seen with no mercy. He jolts awake every night, screaming his throat raw only to be pushed back down by Steve who whispers that ‘it’s alright, Bucky. It’s just a dream’, hands on his face, on his shoulder, sometimes in his hair like his mom used to do. Steve’s hands are always unnaturally warm.

“Maybe you should resign,” Steve suggests one night as he pats Bucky’s head and Bucky pants. Bucky’s thought about it. He wants to. God, he wants to. But two more weeks and they can leave, though. He’s almost there, _they’re_ almost there. He shakes his head at Steve.

“I’m okay,” he insists.

Steve sighs. “Look, we have enough saved to get us out of town. Let’s leave Hurstbane, go west a ways and figure it out from there.”

“No!” Bucky sits. “No, no. I’ve done the math. We need at least ninety for a carriage to Sakers Keep. One hundred fifty each for a boat ticket, and that’s even if we’re able to haggle prices. Once we’re in Graycott, the cost of everything goes up. Food, a place to stay. Those are unknowns but we’ll need two hundred minimum for that.” Bucky’s speaking rapidly, words tumbling out like he’s said them in his head a hundred times. “Your eleven a week is for food for here, for now, and I’m shilling out forty a week to keep you from quarantine, twenty to Foster on Elm and twenty to the priest on Toledge. That doesn’t leave us with a whole lot to spare along the way for inns and food or clothes if we need it. I don’t want to take risks, not after everything, Steve.”

Bucky won’t let go of Steve’s eyes. He’s holding on but slipping, sweaty fingers on a gun. Steve pats Bucky’s cheek and fetches him more water.

“Okay, Buck,” he nods.

 

⇞

 

It’s Bucky’s third week as an officer out of the five he needs when he’s forced to ring the bell for the first time. Four creatures come crawling out of haunted branches, stomping in mud and snow all wrong-boned and flitting. They speak and Bucky’s brain goes fuzzy. Flashing images of Steve covered in blood and Bucky points and shoots. Confusion and fear spike and then fall but never abandon him. He’s shaking so hard when his hands grip the rope and yank. Violently ripping into the air comes the sound of the bell. A hammer of noise in the accustomed wind, interrupting the usual lament to announce something more sinister.

Barton pulls up the ladder in uniform motions. He slides great metal bars across the tower openings and cranks down on the hinges to lock them in place.

“You alright, kid?” he asks Bucky. 

“Yeah,” breathes Bucky, holding the rope. He doesn’t stop ringing even as more bells chime in tandem with his. His body heaving downward to ring the bell, swaying ridiculously as Bucky fights for balance. The other watchtowers clambering to life in harmonized warning. The church bell clanging away in the heart of Hurstbane. In the distance, wooden stacks of rooftops and brick alleyways all fold inwards. Locked doors and shut windows, candles blown out and fires extinguished. Bucky can feel the town go silent and still.

And then they wait. For hours, he and Barton sit in their eastern tower, huddled together in the cold night. They take turns keeping watch over the railing and sticking their rifle barrel through the bars. Bucky will quake through the little opening for a short while, metal barrel clacking on the metal railing. He’ll slowly pull back with hesitancy and blindly reach for Barton to get his attention. Barton takes longer shifts. He sits with a slackened spine and sweeping eyes. With a confidence Bucky realizes he himself will never have no matter how many days he spends in the tower. Nothing else comes out of the forest.

When the morning light returns to Hurstbane, Barton walks Bucky home after the report with Admiral Carter. It’s early and the citizens are still barricaded. There will be no work today, as is law. As is only human.

Barton stops at Bucky’s door, their twin Watchman boots standing opposed. “You gonna be alright?”

“I’ll be alright. How about yourself?” Bucky asks and Barton smiles.

“I’ve seen worse.” And then he’s off.

Bucky turns the key in it’s slot and creaks open the door. He’s not inside fully when thundering steps are making their way toward him and Steve is yanking him inside by his jacket and slamming the door. Bucky doesn’t get a word out before Steve’s kissing him, thin fingers clutching at the front of his thick Watchman coat. His knees buckle and eyebrows furrow and his pulse rockets; Bucky brings his frozen fingers to cup Steve’s jaw as he rediscovers balance and he’s holding on just as tight. It’s so cold outside. They stay like that for just a few hallowed seconds.

Steve breaks away, hand moving to grip at the buttons on Bucky’s jacket. Needing to confirm this reality. “Fuck, Bucky, I thought you were dead. I really thought you were dead,” he says. “Don’t fucking scare me like that.” Breathy little laughs are coming out of Steve’s mouth but he’s hardly smiling. He falls forward to lean his forehead against Bucky’s chest, not wanting to part just yet. “I’m not kidding, I thought you were dead. Are you okay?” The words are met with a couple pats on the back.

“I’m okay.” Bucky assures him and then allows Steve to recede. “I still have two more weeks to go, I’m not dying yet.” He gives a shaky smile. Empty. 

Their tender kiss goes unacknowledged. And then they go back to normal. Their normal. Steve digging graves, coming home covered in mud and hungry. Bucky coming home pale and shaking and never sleeping. Using the blank side of a poster hung in the market, they sketch out a crude map of the district. Of where they’re going to travel through in two long weeks. Add up the expenses, make sure they’ll have enough. Go through each step of the process, the packing their things, the getting a carriage, the train tickets, the inn prices, the other carriage costs, the other inn prices. Add up the expenses, make sure they’ll have enough. List the factories they know of, list their skills and what they can offer, lists, lists, lists. Add up the expenses, make sure they’ll have enough. 

There is nothing left to do but follow their routines. One night, Bucky is trembling so violently that Steve thinks he must be getting sick. Bucky insists that he’s fine. Just one more week. God, how Steve hates this.

He hates black magic, too. He hates everything unnatural in this world, including himself. And it is a cosmic fact that Steve is capable of things that he was not capable of before. He’s pure potential and power and unnatural energy. He hates using his visceral grimoire but Bucky is up there with only a gun. Just a piece of wood and metal and in need of protection that Steve does not _want_ to, but _can_ provide. And sometimes you love things enough to do the things you hate. 

 

⇞

 

It’s a Thursday. Of that fourth week. Bucky’s in his groaning metal tower, holding the railing as it sways. He’s blinking hard, staying in focus with lips pressed into a line. And a white crow flaps down onto the handrail, claws scratching at the peeling paint. There’s a quiet hiss of the oil lamps flickering and the whine of the wind as it calms down.

Bucky looks at the bird and his stomach sinks; it has the saddest blue eyes he’s ever seen. Swimming in heavy hope. The feelings that erupt from the sight of this little creature are _unnatural_. Bucky’s filled with dread, he’s drowning in images of doubt and false memories. 

All at once, in a giant hollow rush, Bucky remembers. 

What happened with Steve and how he lied to him, made him feel stupid and unstable. Made him feel like he wasn’t worth trusting. The unforgivable fear Steve created when chanting backwards verses and touching him with burning fingers, controlling his memory like a god. It’s unfair, Bucky thinks.

The feelings resurface with uncorked anger, too. How he puts himself on the line every fucking day, his life a game of cards. Left halfway between chance and skill. Hope then despair, woven parallel and deconstructed then repaired, over and over. Bucky’s been sitting in this fear for too long, it’s fermenting into rage, into sadness, into agony. He can leave Hurstbane, he can leave this town forever but he can’t leave the fear. It lives inside him now and he’ll carry the weight around like rusting chains. 

Bucky knows in this moment that he hates this bird. He knows in this moment that he hates Steve. Without thinking, he raises his gun and points it at the crow. This gets Barton’s attention and he watches with mild interest. Bucky doesn’t do much other than stand wide-eyed these days. 

With the barrel trembling erratically, the bird stills, pupils dilating. Its’ feathers ruffle in the breeze and its little chest moves in and out. Bucky’s hands shake. He stares at the crow, blinking at it. Wanting it to move, to give him a fucking target. To flutter and flap around like an angry thing, for it to look as angry as he feels. But it stays put on the railing and breathes. Bucky breathes, too. 

The church bell tolls far away in the center of Hurstbane. It’s four o’clock on Thursday. Bucky turns the gun around, sticks the barrell between his chattering teeth, and fires with a humble pang. Barton falls backwards, cursing. The white crow caws. The church bell tolls slowly, slowly.

 

⇞

 

EPILOGUE 

Steve digs Bucky’s grave for three gold shillings. Dig. Heave.

 

THE END


End file.
